After the formation of the mercenary group, Marin went to Vienna to file a report.
This was a necessary step, as while carrying weapons individually or in small groups was common in the chaotic Middle Ages, a group of 100-180 armed men without registration would certainly be treated as bandits and eliminated.
The officials in Vienna were aware that the Emperor would likely expand the army soon, so they didn’t reject Marin’s request.
After issuing him a certificate, they stipulated that Marin’s group must be supervised by the local sheriff where they were stationed and prohibited from looting the local populace.
Otherwise, they would be treated as bandits and face military action.
To legitimize his mercenary group, Marin paid a hefty fee of 1 Mark and an additional 5 Marks in bribes to secure official documents from Vienna, proving the legitimacy of his mercenary group.
With this, Marin officially raised the banner of the “Hoffman Mercenary Group.”
Once the group had its legal status, Marin began preparations for training.
The first priority was to choose a location.
Vienna was out of the question—it was the capital, and beyond its strict regulations, the high cost of living made it an unsuitable choice.
Marin had to support 80 strong men out of his own pocket, and staying in expensive Vienna would bankrupt him.
Initially, he selected Vienna’s western outskirts, the Vienna Woods at the northern foothills of the Alps.
This vast, quiet forest, covering over a thousand square kilometers, seemed ideal for setting up a military camp.
However, as soon as Marin attempted to establish a camp, he was driven away by forest rangers.
It turned out that the Vienna Woods was a royal hunting ground belonging to the Habsburg royal family, designated as a royal park where commoners were forbidden to enter.
Particularly, a small armed group like Marin’s could not be allowed near, as there was concern that they might attempt to assassinate royal family members who came there to hunt.
With no other choice, Marin and his group continued westward until they arrived at a small town called Rohrbach.
Located near the Alps and surrounded by forests, the area offered low living costs.
Additionally, Marin considered hunting in the nearby woods to provide meat and reduce living expenses.
Moreover, since they would eventually need to march into Italy, which required crossing the Alps, and considering the mountainous terrain of the Italian Peninsula, Marin brought his group here partly to train them in mountain trekking.
During the long march, Marin noticed something frustrating—many of the men’s shoes had worn out from the walking, but they were reluctant to buy new ones.
Why?
Because European shoes at the time were mainly made of leather or had wooden soles.
Leather shoes had soles stitched from multiple layers of cow or pig leather, and the uppers were also made of leather.
These shoes were comfortable and sturdy but came at a high cost.
In other words, it would take a commoner 18 days of labor to afford a single pair of leather shoes.
As for wooden-soled shoes, they were much cheaper but not always practical.
Wooden-soled shoes were fine on flat plains, but walking on rugged, rocky mountain roads would quickly cause the soles to break.
Among the 80 men Marin recruited, 50 were wearing the relatively inexpensive wooden-soled shoes.
However, during the march, while traversing some mountainous roads, over 20 of these men’s shoes broke.
By normal standards, they should have bought new shoes.
But these impoverished men, who had come to risk their lives for a meager living, had no money to buy new shoes.
At that moment, Marin suddenly remembered a skill he had learned many years ago in his previous life when he was in the countryside—how to weave straw sandals.
Straw sandals were one of ancient China’s ultimate inventions.
They might look unremarkable, but they were incredibly important.
Even though ancient Chinese people were wealthier than their European counterparts, shoes were still relatively expensive.
For example, cloth shoes with multilayered soles, though handmade by many ordinary households, were considered formal footwear in poor families, only worn on special occasions like traveling or visiting relatives.
However, wearing cloth shoes or wooden clogs while working in the fields was impractical, as the exertion would quickly wear them out.
Wood clogs could easily break, and cloth shoes couldn’t withstand the rigors of field labor.
Thus, the wise Chinese ancestors came up with a solution—woven straw sandals.
Straw sandals were breathable, lightweight, flexible, non-slip, and extremely cost-effective.
For poor families, they were even more important than the Four Great Inventions because straw sandals were affordable and could be replaced frequently.
For example, when the Red Army marched the 25,000 li (12,500 kilometers) Long March, they would have worn out countless pairs of leather shoes, making the cost unimaginable.
But with straw sandals, they could easily gather some durable grass along the way and weave new sandals on the spot whenever needed.
Straw sandals also had a significant advantage in mountain trekking, not just because they could be easily replaced when worn out.
They were also highly slip-resistant, reducing the chances of slipping and falling down a mountain, which could lead to unnecessary injuries or deaths.
Wooden-soled shoes were the least suitable for mountain trekking while using leather shoes for such a purpose would be overly extravagant.
With all these advantages, straw sandals played an important role in Chinese history.
For example, the famous Liu Bei of the Three Kingdoms era started his career by weaving straw sandals and selling them.
What puzzled Marin was that Europe seemed to lack the skill of weaving straw sandals.
Many serfs were so poor that they couldn’t even afford wooden-soled shoes.
Even when they did buy the relatively inexpensive wooden shoes, they only wore them for special occasions like visiting relatives or attending church services. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
During regular labor, most of them worked barefoot.
Walking barefoot in the fields wasn’t a problem, and walking on Roman roads was manageable, but walking on mountain paths was out of the question.
Barefoot walking risked slipping or stepping on sharp stones, but wooden shoes could easily break on rocky paths, and leather shoes were too expensive to wear out this way.
Of the 80 men Marin recruited, only 10 wore leather shoes.
The other 70 either wore wooden shoes or simply went barefoot.
Marin couldn’t bear to see this, so after they reached Rohrbach and set up their tents, he didn’t immediately start training.
Instead, he asked everyone to gather grass stalks and began teaching them how to weave straw sandals.
“Lord Marin, can you really make shoes out of grass?” The nearby group of European peasants was astonished.
However, as they watched, they saw Marin’s hands skillfully twisting the grass into thin ropes, which he then wove into soles and shoe uppers.
This amazed everyone, and they were all full of praise.
After trying on the straw sandals Marin had woven, they found them very comfortable.
Marin had made a winter version of the sandals, which were thick and insulated against the cold.
Since it was currently winter, wearing these thick straw sandals provided good warmth.
Moreover, even though they were thick, they remained breathable, making them both warm and comfortable to wear.
But what frustrated Marin was that after teaching his 86 men (including his six attendants) how to weave straw sandals for two days, only eight of them managed to learn the skill, including Kohler.
The reason these eight men were so “talented” was that seven of them (excluding Kohler) had previously apprenticed as tailors or shoemakers, although they were dismissed due to lack of skill.
Nonetheless, their weaving skills were sufficient for making straw sandals.
Reluctantly, Marin assigned these eight men the task of weaving straw sandals to supply the group’s needs.
Future training would certainly involve cross-country running, which would put a lot of wear and tear on the shoes.
Only with enough spare straw sandals would they be able to endure the training.
Marin had seen war films in his past life where soldiers of the Red Army always carried an extra pair or two of straw sandals strapped to their backpacks.
Liberation shoes only came about after liberation; before that, the Red Army’s millions of troops all fought wearing straw sandals.
To motivate them, Marin announced that these eight “technicians” who could weave straw sandals would receive extra food during meals, including priority access to any available meat.
Thus, Marin’s mercenary group all switched to lightweight, comfortable, and cost-effective straw sandals.
Even those who owned leather shoes switched to straw sandals since leather shoes were too valuable to wear out during training.
Straw sandals, being so cheap, could be worn out without a second thought.
For a financially limited army, such affordable and practical straw sandals were truly invaluable.